Recipes. No, seriously!

Due to the fact that I'm currently unemployed I've been branching out quite a bit lately in the area of cooking - basically, I've actually been cooking! (Go ahead, laugh as long as you feel led to...) I mentioned some of my recipes and have actually had requests for them so here are some online favorites:

1. Soy Sauce/Brown Sugar Grilled Salmon
2. Cinnamon French Toast
3. Meatloaf

Also some family favorites:

Birkner Family Christmas (or in this case, Birthday) Cookies
*This does take quite a bit of time even though they only cook for 10 mins.
3 eggs
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Mix together. Chill dough before rolling it out. Cut and cook on 350 for 10 mins or until lightly brown. 

for the icing...
1 stick butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 T canned milk (add more or less to get desired consistency)
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
food coloring


Barton Family Chicken & Rice
1 stick butter
1 cup uncooked rice
1 can cream of chicken
1 pack Lipton onion soup mix
4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
Pam

Pam the pan. Melt butter in baking dish. Pour 1 cup rice into baking dish w/ butter. Boil 2 cups water with cream of chicken. Pour boiling mix over rice and butter. Lay chicken over the mix. Add 1 pack Lipton Onion Soup mix. Salt & pepper on top & cover with foil. Bake @350 for 1:30 - 1:45




Breakfast Casserole
6 slices white bread buttered on each side
1 lb sausage, browned and drained
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry mustard (although I left this out because I didn't know what it was! :) )
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
2 cups milk or half and half
5 eggs

Place bread in a long baking dish. Lightly mix eggs, sausage, milk, seasoning and cheese. Pour mixture over bread. Cover and refrigerate over night. Bake uncovered 40-50 mins on 350.


We half a lot of the recipes so we don't have oodles of leftovers, although they do make a quick, easy lunch for the next day. Trust me, if I can make these anyone in the world can make them! haha Hope you enjoy some of them as much as we have!

Yours truly,
Betty Crocker/Rachel Ray
Uh, I mean...Jamie :)

Happy Birthday Hubby!!!

Today is my totally awesome, wonderful, loving, handsome, and AMAZING husband's 24th birthday!!! Gosh, that's old! :) In honor of your 1st birthday as my husband, I've written you a lovely poem, Babe. I love you Darrin Blair!!!!! :) :)

D Does sweet things for me just because he loves me.
A Always getting me into some new and exciting adventure.
R Reallllly handsome, especially when he smiles with that one dimple. :)
R Ready to help salvage dinner and save another meal in danger of ME!
I Incredibly amazing singer.
N Nicest man I know!

Ok, so I'm lame at poems. At least I gave you something to laugh at!!! Happy Birthday Darrin!!!! :)

Life is Good :)

We're loving it here in San Antonio!! We're beginning to feel a bit more like "locals" and less like "visitors". We even updated our driver's licenses to make it official! We're making new friends, looking at churches, learning our way around town, and getting unpacked and settled into our apartment. Poor Darrin has already had to golf twice for work, such a rough life! :) We went to Austin for a training for him last week that was very beneficial and he's been getting lots of business to help him learn.

My latest adventure is that I've started trying to cook a few nights a week, with one real deal recipe meal a week (this doesn't sound like much, but for me it's a HUGE accomplishment!) Allrecipes.com has become my best friend. Last week I made a grilled salmon that had a soy sauce and brown sugar flavor to it - pretty delicious!! I even tried out a Cinnamon French Toast recipe for brunch one day that was A-MAZING! (Darrin didn't get to enjoy it because he was already at work, oops I slept too late.) Yesterday I tried out a recipe for meatloaf which was another hit. I've also made some of the old traditional favorites like spaghetti, Hamburger Helper, and cereal. (Hey, I gotta take a break some nights!! :-P)

Last weekend my family came into town for Kaitlynn's volleyball tournament and we had a great time with everyone on Saturday. I didn't realize how homesick I had gotten until they all left! We're looking forward to football season when we can come home more often and see our family and friends.

As fun as it's been to have no real schedule and just get settled in I'll be so ready to start working! I have an interview this Thurs. at 1 pm that seems very promising so please say prayers for me. Also Thursday is Darrin's Birthday!!!! :) (the big 24)


I guess I better run get back to doing nothing - ah!

Goodbyes, Visitors, & New Adventures!

So much has happened since the last time I posted, wow!

Two weeks ago was my last week in College Station, and my last week apart from Darrin. It was full of mixed emotions and lots of goodbyes. :( I spent lots of quality time with my family before leaving town. On Tuesday they had a going away lunch for me at work, Wednesday night I got to go get ice cream with 2 of the little girls from my kids' choir, and Thursday night I went to the Sunday School social for the Young Marrieds class. We are really going to miss that class and all of the incredible couples in it! Friday I tearfully said goodbye to all my friends at work, but some beautiful flowers arrived to help make my day a little happier (thanks Perchy and Martha!!) Darrin came back to town that weekend to help say goodbye and we celebrated Martha's birthday Friday night, then went to Brad and Jill Hodges' wedding with my parents on Saturday. Sunday we traveled home to FINALLY live together again! :) :)

The week in pictures:

Ice Cream with the Sapps

The beautiful flowers I received at work

Some pictures from Brad and Jill's wedding (Noone really wanted me to take any more pics so the one I'm in is borrowed from Abby and the other is my parents walking in - they were so cute in their matching colors :))

Our first week back together in San Antonio was wonderful! The Slaydons (Scott's family) came to town for a few days and the kids helped me make cupcakes one night. Those kids have some MAAAD cupcake decorating skills. On Thursday I went to an informal interview/lunch where I made some good contacts that are trying to help me find a job. I also went to a career fair which to put it nicely was terrible and a complete waste of time. :) Darrin had to go to Houston on Wednesday night through Friday to train with Bo and Adam. It was definitely tough being without him those 2 nights!! :( While he was gone one night I went to work out and made a friend, Sammy who is also a recent A&M Graduate and got her degree in Finance too! (She lives in our complex so I actually met her at the pool one day this week to hang out.) On Saturday night we FINALLY got to have a date night for the first time in like a month! We went to our (well MY) first ever Imax movie to see Inception!! Darrin looooooooved the movie (it confused me a little, but was definitely a good one.) It was soooo nice to have time together and alone! Sunday we visited our first San Antonio church, Community Bible Church. It was nice, but a little too contemporary for our taste and the preacher was wearing blue jeans (if you know me you know blue jeans don't belong in church, ugh!) so it won't be our new church home. We're planning to visit another one this weekend!

The cupcake decorating (yep, Kennedee's wearing a pink apron, I made him! :) )

Proof that we both still exist and love each other. hehe These were taken at Abby's wedding on 7/3/10

Sunday the other Slaydons (Damon's crew minus Damon) came to visit. Me, Tara, and the boys went to Six Flags on Monday while Darrin was at work. We wish he could've been there but had a great time. I'm planning to drag him back and make him ride all the rollercoasters! :) :) On Monday morning (before 6 Flags) I went to another interview, this time with a staffing company. Again, not my cup of tea, but a job's a job and right now I'm unemployed! After the Slaydons left I spent the rest of the week job hunting online everyday and slowly working on unpacking and decorating. I probably sent my resume to like 15 different companies. I don't know how Darrin did this for a year - it's a never-ending process!

Darrin's getting settled in at his job and still really enjoying it, yay!!! He was full time inside sales this week and getting thrown in head first! He's been working hard and learning the ropes and we (me and the kitties) are so proud of him!! Here are some pictures of our not-so-little-anymore babies. 

Soot Chasing cousin Gimli's tail around

Chloe checking out leftover flowers from Abby's wedding

Soot attacking "Pink Mokey" (that's monkey without the "n")

our angels posing pretty for us :)

We've got another busy weekend ahead of us so I'll post again on Sunday evening or Monday. Love and miss everyone!!! :) :)